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Storing your cartridge games, and what happens to their boxes

Did you have the foresight or desire to save the original boxes of your cartridge games? From SNES, to 64, to Gameboy Advance.

I suppose people are more likely to keep them if they're like the Sega Genesis. The plastic clamshell type of case the game fits in nicely. But if it's just a cardboard sleeve, people who aren't collectors wouldn't necessarily see them as valuable later on. Cartridges are pretty sturdy, unlike disks, you can kind of just stack them and not worry about scratching.

I don't have any of the cardboard cases from my childhood. I did keep things like SNES booklets for a long time afterwards, but they've been lost to the sands of time. If I were to buy an old game now, I would keep the box.

There's a pretty cool website called The Cover Project, which lets you print off high quality pictures of game covers. The front, spine, and back. If you print out the cover of a Gameboy Advance game, it fits nicely into the original DS cases, the ones that have a slot for GBA games. So in that way, you can have a plastic cover for GBA titles.

Stole this from Google Images to reference how nice they look on a shelf:

I always really liked the Sega Genesis cases and still have a number of mine. I held on to my game boy boxes (including the one that my gameboy color came in), but I think those all disappeared in a move. Likely my parents or siblings threw away all of the other cartridge boxes.

The only thing that's a head scratcher for me is when people throw out their CD cases in exchange for putting all their discs in like a 60 ct burnt CD folder case. That's definitely not for me.

It's rarely done for an aesthetic reason. I had to put everything in CD cases because I literally ran out of shelving room and had to choose between throwing out over a hundred game cases or throwing out over a hundred games​. Would've liked to keep them out but driving them 1800km to move into a new apartment with less space forced my hand.

The only thing that's a head scratcher for me is when people throw out their CD cases in exchange for putting all their discs in like a 60 ct burnt CD folder case. That's definitely not for me.

It's rarely done for an aesthetic reason. I had to put everything in CD cases because I literally ran out of shelving room and had to choose between throwing out over a hundred game cases or throwing out over a hundred games​. Would've liked to keep them out but driving them 1800km to move into a new apartment with less space forced my hand.

Now that I can understand. I've been in a position where I've had to let some stuff go because I moved hours and hours away and it all had to fit in my car.

My parents never really comprehended the potential value in boxes and cartridges so a lot of my old SNES, Mega Drive, Gameboy, and N64 games got flogged at car boot sales for criminally low prices. (Like they sold my SNES with Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, and Yoshi's Island for £15...)

I always tried to keep games in their boxes (even the cardboard ones) as much as possible, because I liked having a "collection" to look at on the book shelf. These days most of my collection is digital due to living in the Parisien area which means apartments are tiny, lack of storage space etc. and I don't plan on staying here longterm so I wanted to keep the number of physical items I hoard to a minimum. Once I'm somewhere I imagine living more longterm, I full plan on retroactively building up a boxed collection (even if it's going to be a costly endeavour...)

No, definitely did not keep the original boxes. We (my siblings and I) kept the sleeves, for the most part (sometimes a sleeve got lost for a game), but I don't recall any major attempt to keep the boxes. The boxes were flimsy things anyway, so they probably would have gotten too damaged anyway unless we made a serious effort, which I know we didn't. I don't think we ever really stored them back in the cardboard box once we took them out. Just kept them in the sleeve that came with the game and put them in a drawer or cabinet or something together.

We did generally keep the booklets somewhere, but how many of them are still around I have no idea. At this point our SNES and NES games are pretty much all at my parent's house and I don't really know where, so chanced that even the game cartridges are in good condition are slim.

My parents never really comprehended the potential value in boxes and cartridges so a lot of my old SNES, Mega Drive, Gameboy, and N64 games got flogged at car boot sales for criminally low prices. (Like they sold my SNES with Super Metroid, A Link to the Past, and Yoshi's Island for £15...)

Ugh, I feel sick for you. I've still got my boxed SNES version of Yoshi's Island and people are selling it on eBay for over £100!